TV Interview on Huan's Tai Chi on Channel 5 WCVB

Watch Joe's Tai Chi interview last Tuesday, September 13th on on WCVB Channel 5.  Enjoy!

Progress in Tea, and Tai Chi

I have been traveling these last few months which is why I took a short break from my blog.

After the New Year, I was in Shanghai visiting my friends, family and my Tai Chi grandmaster. One of my elementary school classmates has been very successful in business. He retired in his early 30’s and opened a small private tea shop just for treating his friends and business partners. He told me to make time for a half day because he wanted to invite me for tea with few other friends.

“Half a day? Do we really need half a day?” I asked.
“You will see,” he smiled. “I have invited a very famous tea master from Beijing to show you a tea ceremony.”

The tea shop is located in a small alley in the Xuhui District, a very quiet place tucked away inside the big city of Shanghai. After opening the door, I saw a nice garden with many green plants and little stepping stones shaped to look like lotus leaves. After entering the tea room, I saw a special display shelf with a collection of different kinds of tea pots. My friends and I then sat down next to a very traditional red wood table made just for making tea.

The tea master was there. He looks very young, but he is famous in China and has extensive knowledge of different kinds of tea. We started with white tea, then green tea, then Oolong tea, then tea made with smoked wood, then black tea. We even tried some very special handmade tea of which only eight bags exist in all of China, and whose maker recently passed away.

Warming the cups, distributing the tea, waiting for the water to boil at the right temperature, introducing the tea, smelling the tea when it’s dry, making the tea, sipping it, tasting it, smelling the tea in the cup, discussing the tea, noticing the difference between two teas, and pairing light cookies with the different teas; these are all things that must be done slowly. No wonder it took half a day to taste them!

I felt very relaxed during this whole afternoon, even without doing Tai Chi! Even though we felt we had a relaxed and lazy day, we learned a lot of tea history, and found quietness in such a busy city.

Confucius tells us “the more you hurry, the less progress you are going to make.” When we are not in a hurry, we make a lot of progress. In tea, and in Tai Chi.

Copyright Huan's Tai Chi 2013

Tea and Patience

Many things I enjoy require patience, including gardening, Tai Chi, golf, feeding my fish, and having tea.

I love to have tea because it trains you to have a lot of patience. Water is the mother of the tea. Waiting for the water to boil just slows down the step of your daily life. Waiting for the bubbles to surface, the steam to appear, and the water to begin hissing, are all time-consuming.

Before even drinking the tea, steps such as smelling the tea, warming the cup, putting the tea leaves in the cup, and wetting the tea leaves to let the taste seep out all require time. You need to quiet down your mind, just feel relaxed, and try to enjoy the whole process. The process will become a pleasure once you are able to quiet your mind.

Sometimes, although you may try to drink your tea one sip at a time, you may end up swilling the whole cup at once like a donkey. It takes patience to do everything slowly and gracefully. If your mind is not empty and relaxed, how can you enjoy the color, taste, fragrance, or shape of the tea? How can you identify if this tea is smooth, sweet, bitter, light or strong? Can you visit a village for just a few seconds and still enjoy the view? Imagine your cup of tea is like a village. Have patience and be relaxed, and then you can enjoy the details of your tea. Wander around and look for its character, its personality.

Why must we hurry to finish everything fast? The next time you are walking to work, or shopping in the grocery store, try doing it slowly. Be aware of the good feelings and let them last, just like having your tea.

copyrights Huan's Tai Chi 2011

Do Heaven and Hell exist?

Zhang Chu asked monk Zhi Chang.
“ Do Heaven and Hell exist?”
“Yes, they exist.” Monk Zhi Chang answered.
“ That’s confusing, when I was meditating with Monk Jin San, Jin San said ‘No’ to this question.” Said Zhang Chu.
“Do you have a wife and Children?” Zhi Chang Monk asked.
“ A wife and two kids.”
“ What about monk Jin San?” Zhi Chang Monk asked again.
“ Monk Jin San is a monk, he can’t get married!” Zhang Chu became angry.
“Well, just on the family situation. If you were in the same situation as Monk Jin San, then you could say ‘No’.”

Why might I give two different corrections to the same posture on two different students on Tai Chi? Why does their final posture look a bit different? Why do I give two different usages when I teach in two different Tai Chi Classes? It’s the same answer Monk Zhi Chang gives to us on Heaven and Hell.

Copyrighted By Huan's Tai Chi '09

Wisdom from the Oil Salesman

Ouyang Xiu (歐陽修) was a Chinese statesman, historian, essayist and poet of the Song Dynasty. I have read many of his literature. When Ouyang was a little kid, his family was very poor. He couldn’t afford school supply. He used tree branch as a pen to write on the sand. I have read many his literature a long time ago but I still have memory of his work on “Regarding the Pavilion of The Old Drunkard” and “Old Oil Salesman”.

Kang Su Gong was the most famous archer in Northern Song Dynasty. He was practicing shooting in his front yard one day. Many people went watching him. There was an Old cooking oil salesman had two buckets of oil with him. He left two buckets of oil on ground, taking a rest and watching Kang Su Gong. Kang Su Gong has missed only one shot out of ten. Every one started to cheer, but the salesman only nodded his head.

Kang Su Gong saw that, not very pleased.
“ Do you know archery? How do you think my skill?”
“Not very special, just because you have done it for a while” Salesman said.
Kang Su Gong become very angry, “How can you put me down like this?”
Salesman said, “I can show you by pouring my oil.”

He placed a calabash on the ground, then placed a small Tong Qian(Traditional Chinese money with a square hole in the middle) on top of the mouth of the calabash. He took a big spoon and scooped some oil out from the buckets. He then poured the oil into the calabash. You can see the oil formed a long string and went into the calabash through the small hole of the Tong Qian. He was very steady, so you couldn’t see any oil left on the Tong Qian.
After the salesman has done this, he said, “It’s not a big deal I did this, I have done that easily just because I have practiced a lot.” Kang Su Gong smiled and politely sent him away.

We are not only learned that practice make you good from this story, but also found that being humble can prepare you better from learning new skill, because there are always some oil salesmen around whom has unique techniques to show you.

Diet Plan for Tai Chi Practitioners & Rest of Us

While I was doing a Tai Chi Seminar, one student asked me,
“What do you eat for your daily life, what food is good for Tai Chi?”

My advice would be
“Don’t eat too much on one kind of food at once, even on some super food”.

For Example: Vitamin C is really good for your body, but if you take one bottle of Vitamin C, what will happen? Your diet should be a combination of Vegetable, grain, fruit and meat. You need to be careful about taking in different food. You should never eat too much. In Chinese, we say 80% full. Too much food will give a lot of work to your stomach and hurt your stomach in a long run.

We should not do Tai Chi with Empty stomach. If you have an empty stomach before doing Tai Chi, you should eat a little bit food, so you won’t feel dizzy or get a stomach ache while doing Tai Chi. Although it is not necessary to eat only vegetables, eating too much meat is not good for you since meat is acid and hard to digest. Don’t drink too much wine if you doing Tai Chi. Yang Chen Fu said that you shouldn’t do Tai Chi after too much wine.

Another very important reminder is that while exercise with Tai Chi, your breath will become long and deeper, which means a breath will go deeper to your chest. Strong wind and humidity can get into your body in this way. Yang Chen Fu also says to wear long sleeved clothes and not to perform in the wind. If you sweat, don’t take clothing off or take a cold shower, it will hurt your body. In the Ming Dynasty book “Talking of Cabbage Root”, it mentions that

“If you are always sick when you are old, it’s because you didn’t take care of your body when you were young.”

When you are young, you think you are ok to walk in the cold rain, you have fun under the strong wind while driving the boat, but these are actually hurting your body. It didn’t show because you are strong while you are young. These activities plant the seeds for sickness in you and they will occur in the future when you are older. When you know how to take care of your body while you are young, you will enjoy it more while you’re getting older.

Copyrighted By Huan's Tai Chi 09

The Meaning of Life

My Tai Chi/Kung Fu classmate Jim sent me an email today. I remembered when we last emailed, he was sick from food poison. Jim is a good Martial Artist and always pretty healthy, but you never know what will happen in your life. Life is short and I never feel I had enough time to finish things. It doesn't matter how busy I am, I always spend my time to water my garden and do my Tai Chi. It's the enjoyment of my life. They keep you relaxed and bring you energy.

Everyone want to have a meaning of your life. Most time, you are trying to prove yourself or impress others. You are getting a Ph.D. or working hard or trying to prove your worth in this human society. That's wonderful. Helping the society is a great thing to do. On the other hand, I am little selfish. I spend time on gardening and Tai Chi for my own enjoyment. I felt once you can enjoy your little moment, your life has a real meaning. If you have read some articles on Buddha, you know he see through the meaning of life of everybody in their life. Holding a flower in the garden with a smile, that's how Buddha Shows the Meaning of Life.

Are we really all going to Heaven?

What a beautiful sunny weekend we had! I did some gardening and then joined my friend Teresa’s BBQ at rooftop. If you read our website, you saw we auctioned one of our classes to support woman who had Aids, that’s where Teresa use to work. Teresa is only visiting Boston this weekend because she accepted a job in NC a year ago. She love the food and entertainment here and she had a good job here in Cambridge, but she took that job anyway because she think people need more help there.

Here is a Buddhism story,

Once, a person asked the Buddha,

“Where will you go after you die.”
“Hell, of course!”
“Why hell, you suppose to go to heaven, right?”
“If I don’t go to Hell, who is going to teach these people in hell being a good human?”

I didn’t try to imply that NC is hell, of course not. I am trying to say that some time the most wonderful decision ( good for you) is not the most wise decision( good for the world), so before you make the decision, think three times and choose wisely.

All about Drawing

Tomorrow will be a busy day for me. I will have four meetings and a Tai Chi class. I am writing tomorrow’s paragraph today to keep my promise of posting the tulip picture on the blog. I went to MFA after work today for the Wednesday night drawing. I have done a lot of figure drawings while I was learning martial arts to help my self remember the movements, but I am still a beginner on drawing. I am still at the level of filling the blank with shadows. Today’s drawing is to pick an object and draw. I picked a painting and tried to draw the human figure that painting has. It took me an hour and I am still not very satisfied on what I have. I have few phone calls to make tonight, so I need to get home soon. On my way out, I saw few people also doing drawing and they have a teacher. The teacher was showing some of the techniques. Just few simple lines made the figure so alive. It’s almost like Martial arts. It’s all about practice and technique. Once your technique is mature, you can simply draw any thing with simple lines. When we have computers, no one practice their hand writing any more. When we have digital cameras, less people interested in drawing. These are some really good things we need to keep.Because an drawing and handwriting tell people your view of life and your personality, that makes you unique. Will life be bored that every one’s letter is typed in times new roman?

Caterpillar and Butterfly: The Meaning of Life

Last week, I got an email from one of my students, his dog for many years passed away last week and he has tried to stay alone for a while. I have emailed him that he need to talk with friends and go on with life. I am sure his dog wants him to be happy in rest of his life but being sad.

After I wake up today, I see a beautiful day with Blue sky and sunshine! It’s another happy day as always. My tulips are blooming today. ( will post picture tomorrow) As Helen Keller used to say, Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. There is so much great things you can enjoy in your life, why bother to have negative thoughts.

What the Caterpillar calls the end, the world calls a Butterfly. Things can be change all the time. Ying can be Yang. The grass is turning green. A great season for wonderful activities has begun. Have friends over, drink tea, talk and enjoy the literature and art.

Enjoy food, enjoy work, enjoy your study, enjoy helping people. Being creative and trying to think what kind of fun I can have from this little thing I am doing. When you can turn every little things in your life into enjoyment, you life has it’s own special meaning!

This Article is copyrighted By Huan’s Tai Chi

Tai Chi and Fears

It’s been raining for last two days. Hope it didn’t kill the seeds I planted. Am I worried about the plants or I just love the natural or flowers?
As the classic book “Think and Grow Rich” written By Napoleon Hill mentioned,

People have 6 fears.
1. The fear of POVERTY,
2. The fear of CRITICISM,
3. The fear of ILL HEALTH,
4. The fear of LOSS OF LOVE OF SOMEONE,
5. The fear of OLD AGE, and
6. The fear of DEATH.

I thought I don’t have any of these above, because I have been poor, I have been criticized, I have been sick, I have lost love, and I know it’s human nature we all going to die in the future, I have been on the edge of life and death at least three times. Now, it’s funny to think about sometimes, I am still worried on the flower seeds I just planted. As Napoleon mentioned, worry is based on fear, so I guess I still have fear in my life. In a human society, your joy of life is related to others. When you care about people, you worry. When you care about people, you fear. For example: I was worried what students would do when I was late for class last Thursday.

Why people doing Tai Chi? There are so many reasons people told me.
“It’s really cool.”
“It’s fun and healthy.”
“It can make my life less stressed and healthy.”
“It can make me more flexible when I am older.”

All of these applied to three of the six fears
3. The fear of ILL HEALTH,
5. The fear of OLD AGE, and
6. The fear of DEATH

If Tai Chi can conquer 3 fears for you out of total 6 human fears, isn’t this a great activities to do?

This Article is copyrighted By Huan’s Tai Chi

Daily Tai Chi Meditation

When I first asked my students when we were having class, “Did you do your Tai Chi every day last week?” Only few people raised their hands. I kept asking once a while and I found the numbers has been increasing. That’s a good start!

I remembered that one time a student asked me. “ How many hours I should spend on Tai Chi every day. Do you think I had enough each day?”

I mentioned to her. “Well, you need at least one hour of Tai Chi to help you remember the movements since you are a beginner. Two hours or more if you want an improvement. Now, you spend 8 hours at work, 2 hours on the road from and back to work or walking on the street, to your apartment or to supermarket. 2 hours for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and 8 hours sleeping. That’s total of 20 hrs already, if you spend 2 hrs watching TV or chat on the phone with friends. You only have 2 hours left for Tai Chi. You can tell me if you have enough time for Tai Chi or not.”

She smiled and said, “ Now I finally understand, as much time as possible is the answer!”

This Article is copyrighted By Huan’s Tai Chi